"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Jay Honeck wrote:

Of course, "retirement pay" comes out of a different bucket of cash in
the
state's budget then "teacher's salary", so ON PAPER they LOOK like they
"saved the taxpayers some money"...

Typically, retirement pay doesn't come out of current taxes at all. The
employer
sets a certain amount of money aside every year as a retirement account.
Typically,
this money is invested in stock and bond accounts and will grow at the
rate of
between 5% and 15% a year. Some government and education system pensions
are keyed
to the market even after retirement - my mother's pension payments go up
and down
with the stock market, and she has not tired of complaining about it for
the last
three years.

Government retirement DOES come out of current revenue. They wanted to buy
stocks and bonds, but that would have given government strong control over
corporations. That was Jessie Jackson's idea...to buy up "socially
responsible" companies.



In any case, salaries and benefits for those still working are paid for
out of
tax revenue. This includes payments into the retirement account from which
their
pensions will eventually come. Pension payments for retired people are
not - they
are paid out of withdrawals from the pension funds. In part, they are
pre-paid by
taxes that were paid during their period of employment, but the majority
comes
from interest on the account.

It seems you are using "revenue" and "tax revenue" interchangeably between
private and civil service pension funds. Can you clarify?